Introduction to Voluntaryism

In this essay I will discuss the philosophy of Voluntaryism. In Section 1, I will explain the basic principles of this philosophy, then in Section 2, I will discuss some of the more controversial logical conclusions of the philosophy. In Section 3, I will provide some responses to common objections that people raise to Voluntaryism, and I will wrap it all up in Section 4 with some general comments on the future of Voluntaryism.

1. What is Voluntaryism?

Conceptually, Voluntaryism is a very simple moral philosophy – it is the basic proposition that all human interaction should be directly consensual. Voluntaryism rejects the initiation of force in all its various forms including physical violence, threats of violence, theft, bullying, slavery, rape, murder, etc. However, unlike Pacifism, Voluntaryism does not bar the victim of coercion from responding in a strictly self-defensive manner. And voluntaryism completely rejects any attempts to construe offense as defense, such as the phrase “the best defense is a good offence”. Finally (and this barely needs mentioning, but for the sake of providing a complete definition I will include it) voluntaryism does not discriminate on race, gender, age, sexual orientation or physical or mental ability.

Hopefully, up to this point readers will not think that anything remarkable has been said. The above definitions really should sound less like a novel philosophy and more like “how I already live and experience my life”. Indeed 90% of human interactions are already conducted in the voluntary manner described above. In the next section I will discuss the remaining 10% of interactions which contradict the voluntary philosophy. (note that 90% and 10% are just numbers I made up to signify “most” and “a small amount” respectively).

2. Some Controversial Conclusions of Voluntaryism

Based on the above definitions, most people would agree that voluntaryism is a moral philosophy worth upholding. However, in my experience almost all these people will alter their stance and completely reject Voluntaryism when they discover what the logical conclusions of Voluntaryism entail. Here I will list and briefly discuss some of the logical conclusions which people typically find controversial:

The uncoerced passage of goods between seller and buyer is one of the most important consequences of the Voluntaryist philosophy. For the exchange to be voluntary, both parties must be free to set their own terms for the exchange. The seller must be free to charge any price and the buyer must be free to request any price. Both parties must be free to reject the other party’s price and indeed the whole trade if desired. Obviously theft is the polar opposite of this voluntary arrangement and therefore is completely rejected under Voluntaryism.

If the seller fears that the buyer may use the exchanged goods for a purpose which he (the seller) does not personally agree with then, according to the Voluntaryist philosophy, the seller is completely justified in refusing to trade. For example, the seller might fear that the buyer would use the weapons he sells to attack innocent people, in which case he would be free to boycott the deal. Likewise, someone may buy a house then discover that there are marijuana plants growing in the garden. If this person does not approve of the use of marijuana then, according to the voluntaryist philosophy, there is no requirement to sell the plants even if doing so would be profitable.

Voluntaryism supports the acquisition of any weapon for defensive purposes, and denies the legitimacy of a third party to interfere in a trade of such goods. Ownership and use of drugs (e.g. alcohol, caffeine, tobacco, heroin) are unrelated to coercion and is therefore fully permissible under the Voluntaryist philosophy. Therefore Voluntaryism does not permit a third party to interfere against the wishes of the buyer and seller in drug trades.

Voluntaryism rejects taxation (regardless of the purpose of this tax)

Taxes are a form of involuntary exchange, and are synonymous with theft. Without the initiation of force, taxes would cease to exist. Taxes are not subject to voluntary negotiation between buyer and seller, but rather they consist of a third party forcefully intervening in a transaction to extract an arbitrary amount.

As this is one of the hardest concepts for newcomers to Voluntaryism to understand, I will devote a large portion of the Section 3 to responding to common objections to the claim that “taxation is theft”.

Voluntaryism rejects both non-defensive wars and mandatory conscription for any war

As was briefly mentioned in the first (definitions) section, Voluntaryism can be distinguished from pacifism in that Voluntaryism permits self-defense while Pacifism does not. Therefore the Voluntaryist response to a threat of invasion is to fend off the attackers, using deadly force only as a last resort; whereas the pacifist response would be to stand by and observe (or be killed) as the attackers invade.

However, initiating an attack, regardless of the intended purpose of that attack, runs directly against the Voluntaryist philosophy. For example, if there is a strong suspicion that a neighboring regime is amassing for an attack, the Voluntaryist response would not be to preemptively attack the regime, but rather to ensure that all grievances are dealt with and restitution made for any wrongs. If the regime is unreasonable and still wishes to invade, then the Voluntaryist course of action might be to strengthen the defenses. It would probably also be wise to inform the regime that these defenses are not for the purpose of launching an attack, so as to minimize the chances of an arms race.

One other important issue relating to voluntary self-defense on a large scale is the procurement of mercenaries. According to Voluntaryism, mandatory conscription must be rejected as this involves forcing someone to do something (fight) against their own will. Rather, Voluntaryism requires that mercenaries freely choose to conduct any defensive activities. And of course those who wish for the mercenaries to defend them are free to provide incentives (e.g. money, land, etc.) in exchange.

In Section 3 I will respond to the objection that these mercenaries would turn on those whom they have agreed to defend.

Voluntaryism = Anarchy

As you will probably have noticed from the above conclusions, the main opponent of Voluntaryism is government. This may come as a shock to those who considered the definition of Voluntaryism given in the first section to be a good definition of morality. If voluntaryism is synonymous with morality then the opposite of Voluntaryism must also be the opposite of morality, which makes government inherently immoral.

This is not to say that all the things that government does are necessarily immoral, but rather that the manner in which these things are done is immoral. For example, providing welfare for the disabled would seem to be a very moral activity and this is indeed something which governments do. However, the manner by which the welfare money is obtained to give to the disabled is of vital importance. Governments obtain their money either through taxation or legal tender laws and the printing of money (inflation), both of which require the initiation of force, so the only moral action to take with this money is to return it to its victims. In Section 3 I will refute the objection that the poor and disabled would go without welfare in a voluntary society.

It also bears mentioning here that anarchy can mean different things to different people. Some people associate anarchy with chaos – indeed this is a typical usage of the word, while others associate anarchy with a lack of private property (communism). However, when I say anarchy in this essay I simply mean “no government”. This does not mean “no rules”, but rather “no involuntary rulers”. Voluntaryism of course permits people to voluntarily subjugate themselves to rulers (for example, a personal trainer is a form of ruler, and so can be an employer), however it is the rulers who have not been appointed in a directly consensual manner who are illegitimate under Voluntaryism.

By this stage you may be feeling fairly shocked. My guess is that you had never considered things such as drug prohibition, taxation, or mandatory conscription to be immoral and, unless you are in a tiny minority, I am fairly certain that you have never considered anarchy to be moral. The sad fact is that the most powerful people in the world in which we live write laws which directly contravene the Voluntaryist philosophy. However, Voluntaryism is somewhat vindicated by the fact that the average person interacting with their friends, or buying things at the shops or just going about their everyday lives is already acting according to the Voluntaryist philosophy.

3. Responses to Common Objections to Voluntaryism

I will start this section with a brief discussion on a couple of the positive aspects of human nature – namely human compassion for others who are less fortunate than ourselves, and the human tendency to work to improve our own lives both via individual creativity and via cooperation with others. I will be referring back to these points as I respond to some common objections to Voluntaryism later on in this section.

Just as almost all humans have two legs and two arms, so almost all humans feel compassion for each other. Researchers at Princeton university have found that the human brain seems wired up to respond to others’ suffering [1]. They found that helping others triggers activity in the caudate nucleus and anterior cingulate, portions of the brain that turn on when people receive rewards or experience pleasure. This is a rather remarkable finding – helping others brings the same pleasure we get from the gratification of personal desire. While it may be rare for someone to devote their entire life solely to helping others, it is not rare for a large number of people to devote a much smaller amount of effort to helping their fellow man. 1000 people donating their time and effort for merely an hour each week have a far greater effect than a single mother Teresa diligently devoting every hour of her life to the same cause.

Another positive aspect of human nature is the human tendency to work to improve one’s own life. In its most basic (microeconomic) form this trait is essential for human survival. Examples include working to feed oneself, clothe oneself, and shelter oneself from harsh environments. The more complex (macroeconomic) form of this trait is responsible for all the economic progress we enjoy in our modern high-tech world. Examples include the development of the a combine harvester which enables a single farmer to do the same amount of work previously requiring thousands of people, the development of medical equipment and techniques which have helped extend the human lifespan from less than 30 years to over 75 years, and supersonic air travel which can transport people from one side of the globe to the other in under a day (to name a small fraction of human accomplishments!). All of these accomplishments are due to individual and collaborative human creativity. It also bears mentioning that coercion has never been necessary for the development of inventions. People do not need a gun to their head to develop innovative things – they will do so both because they find it fulfilling and because the rewards are great.

With these human traits in mind I will now answer some of the most common objections to the Voluntaryist philosophy:

Without taxation the poor and disabled would starve to death

The first thing to note here is that the objection does not dispute the fact that “taxation is theft”. Rather, it focuses on the consequences of eliminating tax. In other words, this objection presupposes that the initiation of force (theft in this case) is justifiable so long as the ends are sufficiently worthy. This notion is actually part of another common philosophy known as consequentialism. Voluntaryism on the other hand comes under the deontological ethics category of philosophy. Entire books have been devoted to debating the relative merits of these two philosophies, so obviously I will not go to such a deep level here. However I will counter this particular claim by simply altering the ends in question.

Consider the following scenario – there is a need to provide clean water, clothing, medical equipment, etc. to the world’s poorest people many of whom are currently living hand-to-mouth in Africa. I will proceed under the assumption that the person raising the objection agrees that providing these ends is a very worthy goal. Therefore I might propose to the objector the following means to achieve this goal: “tomorrow I will begin stealing cars, starting with yours, and I will then be selling them to donate the proceeds to the starving African people”. My guess is that the objector would be outraged at this idea. So I might continue, “but don’t you care about those who are starving in Africa?”. And I would expect that the objector to respond, “of course I do, but this worthy cause does not warrant your stealing my property. I’d be prepared to donate voluntarily to an African charity, but you can’t just take my things to finance your operation!”

Hopefully this scenario demonstrates that stealing someone’s property is immoral, even for the noble motive of helping the poor and disabled. As I discussed at the start of this section, people are naturally compassionate, and when faced with others who are down on their luck they are naturally willing to lend a hand or give money or goods to help out.

Finally, I must add that 100% of people who raise objections to Voluntaryism will give this as one of their main objections, which I take as further proof that people are very interested in the well-being of the poor and disabled. my expectation would be that if government compulsion were removed from the equation then there would still be a widespread desire to ensure that the poor and disabled are well taken care of. Furthermore, in the absence of tax and inflation, vast additional resources would become available for this purpose.

Without taxation there would be no roads, public hospitals, police, etc.

This is another very common objection to Voluntaryism, and as with the previous objection, it does not dispute the fact that “taxation is theft”, but rather focuses on the consequences of eliminating tax. The underlying theme of this question is that without taxation the average person would not be able to afford basic necessities which are currently paid for with taxation. Some people will also point to the USA when stating this objection and say that when healthcare is not run by government then it costs people a lot more.

The stated objection is actually derived from another political philosophy which is very popular in western democracies today – state socialism [2]. This becomes clearer when the objection is rephrased in a broader manner: it is acceptable to act in an immoral manner because doing so will result in cheaper goods or services.

There are two responses to this objection and I will give both. The first is that voluntaryism is a moral philosophy and so it is not directly concerned with economic efficiency. An example from history will serve well here. During the late 1700s in the USA, all cotton was grown and harvested by African-American slaves. The main fear of the day was that if slavery were abolished then cotton farmers’ profits would be lower as they would have to pay workers to do the work voluntarily. The voluntaryist response to this dilemma (which hopefully the objector will agree with) is that no amount of profit justifies enslaving someone. Likewise with roads, public hospitals and police – no amount of cost reductions for some can justify stealing from others. If roads, hospitals and services which protect people can be provided via voluntary exchange (and I will explain in the next paragraph that they can), then this is completely in line with voluntaryism. But voluntaryism opposes these things both being funded by stolen money and being forcibly monopolized.

the previous paragraph may leave some readers feeling apprehensive that a voluntaryist society would be a very expensive one to live in. This leads to the second response to the objection – government involvement is inherently expensive, and in fact societies in which all human interactions are directly consensual (i.e. a society of voluntary exchange) are the most economically efficient societies currently known to mankind. I won’t delve too deeply into the topic of economics as it is large enough to fill many libraries, but suffice to say that:

coercive monopolies have the least incentive to lower prices as they face the least economic competition [3]

once laws are passed by governments it is close to impossible to repeal them, even if they are generally agreed to be inefficient and unnecessary [4]

government regulation of otherwise voluntary activities can reduce economic efficiency to the point where the market becomes just as inefficient as the government administering the regulations [5]

This final point is the case for almost the entire American healthcare system, which people mistakenly cite as a model of voluntary exchange. An alternative healthcare system built on Voluntaryist principles would be the mutual-aid model which existed prior to the takeover of the healthcare market by government at the start of the twentieth century [6].

So to summarize, far from there being no roads, hospitals, and protective services in the absence of taxation, these services would actually be provided in an ethical manner and at much lower prices.

Without government warlords would take over

This objection comes up quite often. The first thing to note is the use of the word warlord to imply a coercive entity who is both legally and morally exempt. However, as discussed in Section 2, government is already the one coercive institution in almost all countries to be both legally and morally unaccountable. Governments write their own laws which govern their code of conduct, so if they wish to do something previously classified as illegal they can simply enact it into law. So the question really should be rephrased to, “without a single morally exempt entity, other morally exempt entities might spring up”. When put like this, the objection sounds rather strange. If the aim is to eliminate morally exempt entities then surely the first step should be to eliminate the existing one.

I suspect that when people raise this objection what they really mean is, “what if, in a society run on voluntary principles, warlords were to enslave the entire population in a military style dictatorship?”. The simple answer to this is that people in a voluntary society should always be prepared for such attempts and should set up mechanisms whereby this is not possible. I obviously can’t predict the mechanisms that people may choose but here are some ideas:

a mobile phone app that alerts a large number of people to an invasion so that defense can be as speedy as possible (penalties for false alarms would also be recommended)

delegation of defensive responsibility to a number of security providers, each of which is kept in check by a large bond to be forfeited if their Voluntaryist code of conduct is breached [7]

internet and TV media to investigate any entities capable of amassing an army, and to report on any who are unwilling to be completely transparent

Of course there are an infinite number of possible ways which the problem of security could be solved. In the absence of government, it would be in every person’s immediate interest to seek out flaws in the security provision system and fix them. As mentioned at the start of Section 3 people are very creative when faced with challenges, and when large groups of people put their mind to a task they can be completely unstoppable. Viewed in this light, the protection offered by government defense forces no longer seems like the firewall it is commonly thought to be.

Without government the rich would take over and essentially run the country

As with the objection to voluntaryism on the grounds of warlords taking over, this objection already contains a loaded assumption. In this case the assumption is that so far the rich have not taken over and are not running the country. The reality though is that it is hard to find a country where this objection is not already the case. The average net worth of politicians is well in the millions and often in the billions of dollars in western democracies [8]. And likewise the consultants and business connections who influence these politicians are exceedingly wealthy (and in many cases are ex-politicians themselves) [9].

Voluntaryism has no objections to wealth, so long as it is earned through voluntary exchange. In fact wealth earned in this manner is a reward for providing a large number of people with the goods or services they desired. However wealth earned through legal privilege or by secretly granting political favors to business friends in exchange for a kickback is about as far from voluntary exchange as it gets.

The elimination of government, far from being beneficial to the rich, would actually close off a large source of their funding. Without the legal ability to tax or regulate money away from people, or even to print it for themselves [10] the rich would need to produce something of value to sell to willing customers.

Democratic government is already voluntary. We all agreed to be governed when we voted

While it may be true that casting one’s own vote signifies one’s willingness to be governed, it is certainly not true that this action signifies anybody else’s willingness to be governed. If voting is synonymous with consent then those who do not vote have not given their consent, and this consent certainly cannot be given on that person’s behalf. This fact is not altered by the ratio of voters to non-voters. Needless to say, voluntaryists refuse to vote.

If you don’t like it here you can always leave

As with many of the previous objections, this objection contains a hidden agenda. This is best seen by rephrasing the objection: “the system may well be immoral, but people like it this way. If you were to leave and stop bringing this issue up then we could all go back to pretending that things are fine”.

As already discussed in Section 1, 90% of our lives in today’s western democracies are already conducted according to the Voluntaryist philosophy. The remaining 10% involves people’s interactions with government. Personally I find government to be an annoyance, however not to such a point that it is unbearable. If the government’s intrusion increased to a point where it did become unbearable I imagine I would seek out a new country which was more in line with voluntaryism (if one existed, if not then staying would still be the best option). However, until that happens I would prefer to attempt to open people’s minds to voluntaryism in the hope of bringing about a paradigm shift.

4. Conclusion

Now you have a fair understanding of Voluntaryism. No doubt you can think of a large number of further objections to this philosophy, maybe I will write more essays rebutting other objections. But in the meantime, rather than thinking, “Voluntaryism is indeed a moral and admirable idea, but it would never work in practice,” ask yourself why it would never work, and go one step further and think “could it be made to work if enough people wanted it to?”. Also consider whether Voluntaryism runs in line with or against human nature, and consider whether the deviations from Voluntaryism in our current world (mainly government and criminals) run in line with or against human nature. Every general objection that can be raised to Voluntaryism has been a problem at one stage of history or another, and has been solved in a voluntary manner previously. I think we have every reason to aim for such high standards again.

Finally, a quick discussion on the goals of Voluntaryism. Clearly the aim of this essay has been to try and convince the reader to join the Voluntaryist cause. But what is the Voluntaryist cause? Well really it is quite simple – firstly to educate as many people as possible regarding the nature of morality. This is something that is not taught in schools, so, much as people in the 1300s took it for granted that the sun revolved around the earth, people today take it for granted that governments are capable of acting in a moral manner. If this educational enlightenment can be achieved then my guess is that the desire to eliminate forceful programs and (where applicable) replace these with voluntary alternatives will follow naturally from there.

If you agree with the Voluntaryist definition of morality I have given in the first section and if you can see how the consequences given in the second section are derived from the original definitions, and if you agree with the rebuttals in the third section then I have probably taught you all you need to know to begin your own journey of discovery. Here are some more resources for further investigation:

https://www.youtube.com/user/LarkenRose – Larken Rose has some very good videos challenging common perceptions of government. In particular check out “If You Were King” and “The Jones Plantation”.

https://www.youtube.com/user/stefbot – Stephan Molyneux hosts a radio show discussing every aspect of the life of a Voluntaryist. For starters check out “The Story of Your Enslavement” and “The Bomb in the Brain”. A side note here – Stefan may not be the most consistent advocate of the Non-Aggression Principle, so remember to always critically analyze everything he says. I personally have found that I disagree with him on a number of things. Nevertheless, 90% of the time he is spot on and very instructive..

https://www.youtube.com/user/AnCapChase – Chase Rachels gives some really good lectures on practical Voluntaryist alternatives to currently state monopolized industries, such as the roads, welfare, etc.

Mises.org – if you prefer reading to watching videos, the Ludwig von Mises institute publishes many articles which discuss the economics of voluntary vs. involuntary exchange. They have a daily mailing list which is always well researched and very topical.

NotBeingGoverned.com – finally another one for those who prefer reading. This blog has many excellent articles on voluntaryism and economics. Check out the “Anarchy – Never Been Tried?” articles for historical examples with aspects of voluntary societies.

251 Comments Already

Of course Voluntaryism will work. It’s the way 99% of us conduct ourselves all the time. We earn a living without coercion, we trade with a dozen merchants a day without coercion. Even when we are violently attacked we usually seek restitution through peaceful means. Every driver who stays on his side of the yellow line is honoring an unwritten, voluntary agreement with us. (Although it would be a higher technology to have explicit agreements.) Every person who buys a refrigerator is engaging in voluntaryism.

The fact people think these principles could not be extended to the last 1% of transactions – the actual governance of a society – only shows how much effort has gone into teaching and conditioning them to think otherwise.

thanks pete, i fully agree – its really amazing isn’t it! we truly are a world full of sheep if we can’t see how little of life’s interactions reside outside the voluntaryist philosophy already. time to start waking up some sheep!

It’s naive to make this assumption. Voluntaryism fails in several cases because true voluntaryism is impossible. To achieve “true” voluntaryism, you need every human on earth (or at least all people following voluntaryism rules) to consent to each human interaction made. This can never happen, so it gets simplified to only apply to the humans doing the interactions. The problem here is a person outside of said interaction can face direct consequences from it, while having no chance to consent to it. Take, for example, the sale of heroin. It can be completely consensual between the seller and the buyer, but the guy living next door to the buyer knows heroin can lead to violence and can likely lead him to being a victim of the sale. He obviously wouldn’t consent to it if he had the chance, but there is way for voluntaryism to deal with his disapproval. When (significant) consequences are restricted just the people making the decisions, as is the case with most day to day interaction, voluntaryism works perfectly well. Reality is unfortunately more complicated than that.

Voluntaryism is not an attempt to describe reality, but rather a goal. Reality is certainly more complicated for those who don’t bother establishing consent in their interactions. However, for those who do (I am one), the “complications” are not so complicated – they’re just violence.

The principles of voluntaryism make it much simpler to identify people with whom I don’t want to associate. We (voluntaryists) still suffer from violence, but it’s easy to recognize, and many people who are not voluntaryist can easily understand the difference, and recognize that voluntaryism is a goal very much worth pursuing.

Best of all, however, is that once you know someone understands and agrees with voluntaryism, you know you will not be violated by them. That has tremendous value.

its sociopathic gibberish based on the idea that people rather than acting through mutual co-operation in the place of government, which obviously benifits most of the population to the greatest extent, they instead act in a totaly sociopathic ,ultra individualistic way to maintain the capitalist system which fucked thm in the first place.ancap theory basically says society is crap, government is crap so lets remove govenment and let society collapse rather than having any ideas about how to improve society as a whole for the vast majority of people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-communismhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-communism

Hi Jez, could you point to anything in the article which goes against people forming the type of society you describe? Or indeed anywhere where it suggests that the current system ought to be maintained?

Luke, your answer can be easily turned around. For the US republic to work, every nation in the world would have to adopt the same type of government. Nothing in this world is so simplistic that the all or nothing approach is the only possible method. Especially when we are talking of human interactions. What you answer really told the readers was that you do not desire understanding, but merely refuse to dwell upon the issue as it stands. That’s fine, but don’t expect me to take you seriously.

this is basically ancap gibberish where workers get one turnip a week for the right for their employer to pay no taxes.
once youve decided that goverment and the state are basically working against the peoples best interests you dont go down the sociopathic ultra individualistic route that ancaps like but you organise society on the basis of mutual co-operation and local federation because that is how people act when left to their own devices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-communism

ancap crap is based on the rather fanciful and deeply sociopathic idea of volentary transactions under capitalism,and ultra individualism, in both cases 90% of the population are on their own as society collapses because nobody pays any taxes, the main problem being that for most people the real source of their problem is capitalism

Just curious, is there a place for environmental protection with this? I’m sure many people will voluntarily take care of the environment, but i think its obvious that not every cares and many people will still continue to abuse the environment as if they own nature…. thoughts?

no this is just gibberish ,as society collapses because nobody pays taxes there is no basis for the argument that capitalism which is the main source of problems in society will, left to its own devices, act to undo the enviromental damage which it has itself caused.

as dh says, the problem of environmental protection can certainly be solved without needing to initiate force. chase rachels has also made a video on this topic, and i think it is excellent: youtube.com/watch?v=xY2Lyk-56YQ

good one. another one i sometimes use is an analogy with nazi germany. i doubt many people today would say, “hitler was fully justified in what he did – if the jews didn’t like it then they could always leave”. to say that sounds really heartless, and i think most people don’t want to be thought of that way. but really the only difference between this and what we have now is the degree of immorality. both genocide and theft are immoral, but one is more so than the other.

Thank you for this, it is excellent. For many years I have viewed and described myself as a libertarian, but maybe voluntaryist is better. I spend too many hours thinking about the dismantling of the nanny state and the one issue that stumps me, and that I believe is a show-stopper, is the sheer number of people who currently make their living off the state. In Canada, where I live, more than 3 million people are on the payroll of government (from a working population of approx. 15 million). This does not count the millions who draw some form of income from the state. How do you respond to the objection that shuttering the government would disemploy so many people?

Dave, may I offer this. At the turn of the 19/20th centuries almost 90% of the people in North America worked in agriculture or something supporting it. Now it’s under 2%. If that many people can be moved away from an industry as essential as eating, it seems a much smaller matter to move 30% of the ‘workforce’ away from coercive interference that offers near-zero value (often negative value) to the rest of the population. Think of the waste to humanity of having so many millions of people performing work of zero value. I welcome the day when every individual is performing work the free market welcomes and supports. Slavery is never prosperous for the sum of people.

Pete, that is an excellent observation and also relates directly to the question you answered in more than one way. By that I mean with the abolition of government, the fall of the mega-corporations would soon follow. This would naturally include agri-business. In a free economy, we would then have many more people operating small farms and businesses. In short, we would not only have more employment, we would have a much higher standard of living as well.

i’m glad you liked it! there are a number of answers to the problem you pose.

the first i think is that government has been living beyond its means for quite a while now and this will simply not be sustainable forever. this is not a moral argument, but rather a practical one which examines the economic realities we currently face – in the usa at least, certain government programs are completely unsustainable from a funding point of view. government is either going to have to increase taxes by about 60% to cover these programs or else cut back massively on the programs. in short, the budget will soon have to begin balancing, and once this happens it will stay that way in all likelihood, forever. of course this would not be anarchy, but it would be a step in the right direction and hopefully would lead people to become more and more disenfranchised with government for previously making promises it never intended to keep. here is some info on this topic: qr.ae/Nm2ii and there is plenty more online too – i highly recommend the mises.org website.

and secondly, there is the moral argument that stealing cannot be justified by “the greater good” – as per my car-thief example in the above essay. the sooner that people stand up and say to the government, “you have no right to take even one cent of the money i have worked to earn” then the sooner the goal of voluntaryism will be achieved. as pete sisco says, far from resulting in a poverty stricken society, it would mean that those who are currently employed by government to do unproductive tasks would simply be freed up to actually begin generating wealth. i won’t say that the transition will not be painful – i’m sure it will for many people who have never had to work in a competitive environment before, but i’m not expecting anybody to starve due to this. western societies are far too wealthy for that to even be possible today (gu.com/p/32cpk). one way to make such a practical stand against theft may be to switch from fiat currencies to another form of income that is harder to tax. for example, working for bitcoin instead of working for dollars would enable people to drastically underreport, or simply not report their income. if such a phenomenon were to hit critical mass in a short amount of time then this would impossible to police and would practically wipe out the nanny state overnight.

there are other possibilities too, such as debt spirals due to qe, etc. but you get the gist…

i’m glad you liked it! there are a number of answers to the problem you pose.

the first i think is that government has been living beyond its means for quite a while now and this will simply not be sustainable forever. this is not a moral argument, but rather a practical one which examines the economic realities we currently face – in the usa at least, certain government programs are completely unsustainable from a funding point of view. government is either going to have to increase taxes by about 60% to cover these programs or else cut back massively on the programs. in short, the budget will soon have to begin balancing, and once this happens it will stay that way in all likelihood, forever. of course this would not be anarchy, but it would be a step in the right direction and hopefully would lead people to become more and more disenfranchised with government for previously making promises it never intended to keep. here is some info on this topic: qr . ae / Nm2ii and there is plenty more online too – i highly recommend the mises . org website.

and secondly, there is the moral argument that stealing cannot be justified by “the greater good” – as per my car-thief example in the above essay. the sooner that people stand up and say to the government, “you have no right to take even one cent of the money i have worked to earn” then the sooner the goal of voluntaryism will be achieved. as pete sisco says, far from resulting in a poverty stricken society, it would mean that those who are currently employed by government to do unproductive tasks would simply be freed up to actually begin generating wealth. i won’t say that the transition will not be painful – i’m sure it will for many people who have never had to work in a competitive environment before, but i’m not expecting anybody to starve due to this. western societies are far too wealthy for that to even be possible today (gu . com / p / 32cpk). one way to make such a practical stand against theft may be to switch from fiat currencies to another form of income that is harder to tax. for example, working for bitcoin instead of working for dollars would enable people to drastically underreport, or simply not report their income. if such a phenomenon were to hit critical mass in a short amount of time then this would impossible to police and would practically wipe out the nanny state overnight.

there are other possibilities too, such as debt spirals due to qe, etc. but you get the gist…

Hi Peter et al.,
I am the webmaster for voluntaryist.com and wondered if you’d ever heard of our site. Carl, the site owner, has been publishing The Voluntaryist newsletter (by snail mail) for over 30 years.
I would have sent a private inquiry, but I was unable to find a contact page.

cool! i have checked out some articles on there before. this site is actually not run by me – i just write essays occasionally and alert various people when i do so. friend me on fb if you like – you can get to my fb account by clicking on my name at the top of the essay

Self-defense is an admirable goal. The strategy of providing input to a system that violates us, however, might be counterproductive. Since, for example, the demagogues point to voter participation and use it to imply that they some aura of moral legitimacy, their depredations are, in effect, counting on votes regardless of what those votes say. Perhaps, rather than voting, you can find your way to defying any laws passed that you find immoral. That’s what I do.

According to Peter, since you vote (as self-defense), you are not a voluntaryist. I would agree with him, but I would also argue that you are close enough that it doesn’t matter. From that realization, perhaps you agree that further discussion of the meaning of “voluntaryist” is a waste of time and effort. This brings me to an important point.

I see an opportunity here for all non-voting voluntaryists to learn from your reckoning, and for you to learn from theirs. That’s far more productive than arguing about the meaning of a word. This is why I wrote my first paragraph. There is an idea from Judo that the strength of one’s enemy can be effectively used against him. When I consider how perfectly the “statist quo” performs such Judo against voters, I conclude that my own Judo is no match, and so I don’t vote. Perhaps we can learn from each other.

thanks justin. i had not come across voluntaryists that do vote before. anyway, its good to have that info here in the comments so that others can see the minor variations within voluntaryism.

i understand where you are coming from regarding voting in self-defence but i would still advise against it. unfortunately voting will not result in this self-defence that you desire, but rather the opposite. whichever politician that wins will point to the voter turnout (which your vote has contributed to) as proof of their right to govern. and they will then do as they please, which regularly involves going against their campaign promises, and always involves forcing peaceful people to do things against their will.

at this point i am reminded of something frederick douglass said and i think is pretty accurate:

“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”

so while i would advise to abstain from voting, i would still say that there are plenty of other actions which will yield better results and will not strengthen the ruling class. for example protesting in public places, getting involved in agorism to whatever degree you can afford, breaking laws you deem unjust and encouraging your friends to do the same, etc.

Nice try rookie but no. You stay between the lines because there are laws. I suppose you are for Austrian economics too. This article was poorly written and poorly argued in so many ways. “Still does not prove that taxation is theft?” Your arguments do not prove that it is. This piece is a comedy act. As well, the term voluntary-ism is the biggest joke of all. And Peter your austerity argument proves that you know very little about economics. I don’t care if you went to Wharton, you didn’t pay attention. Did you pull that 60% figure out of your ass because its not remotely close. Instead of staying between the lines, how about you stay off the roads, the ones which the taxpayers pave. Or you could initiate a practice where all roads are maintained through tolls and maintained by private contractors that would gouge on price resulting in even higher tolls (oops a tax).

I work for the Maritime Administration. We keep Americans employed. Period. We also keep a merchant marine fleet that would allow the USA to DEFEND ourselves (although I am not for the imperialistic practices of the past few wars) in case we needed to.

The 60% figure intrigued me too. It’s certainly a positive number that should be there (since the national debt keeps growing), but what would be more accurate?

Voluntaryism does, in a sense, attack all efforts of the state, including those that provide (or appear to provide) some benefit (such as your Martitime Administration’s efforts to keep Americans employed). This makes your attack understandable. However, I urge you to reconsider the article from the perspective that it may have some merit. If it does turn out that you see some possible improvements in the way the MA operates, great! If not, isn’t that great too? You could correct some misunderstandings if you open a friendly dialog.

I am aware of a few prominent people who discovered that they were doing more harm than good in their job. I’m not suggesting you’ll do that, but I wouldn’t want such a potential discovery to scare you from exploring. John Taylor Gatto was a teacher, presumably helping kids learn and grow, until he … well, check out http://www.educationrevolution.org/blog/i-quit-i-think/ which is the resignation letter that got published in the Wall Street Journal.

Your commitment to serving your fellow citizens is admirable. Consider that the workers who implement the imperialistic practices (which you and everyone else here are NOT for) have as much pride in their jobs as you do in yours. Let’s work together to reach them instead of attacking each other for being too critical of what we ourselves value.

I am just beginning my research on volenaryism, and not not adept. I do however agree with everything I have read about the subject. I do however pose two very practical questions. Having never voted, is my consent to government still assumed? Also, has there been any discussion on how we might safely move to a volentarist community from the one in which we currently hold? More particular, how do we address the millions who rely on government assistance without placing them into third world type poverty?

peter miller-July 23rd, 2018 at 9:55 pmnone
Comment author #43148 on Introduction to Voluntaryism by The Art of Not Being Governed

Larken Rose has some good videos on how to get there.

Regarding the dog meat salesman – I think it would depend on societal norms. For example in China dogs are currently eaten and its nothing unusual. In such a place a single protester is not going to have much luck starting a movement against eating dogs. But in the west it is currently taboo. I’m not sure if its illegal in all western countries, but lets assume there is a western country where it is perfectly legal to eat dog meat and yet is also taboo. In such a case you have to think why is the practice not widespread? An answer might be that if people there are found to be eating dog meat they will be publicly shamed. That alone is deterrent enough for most people. But for those that don’t care so much about their public image, they still might not eat dog meat openly as it might result in them losing their job, as their employer seeks to distance themselves from the negative publicity. This kind of thing happens already – I’m thinking of feminists getting people fired. I can’t say I always agree with their values but the method can be effective. Anyway, the main takeaway is that society is complicated and unpredictable. Social pressure and economic pressure are forces that are very underrated and government laws are completely unnecessary to prevent people from comitting taboos or even crimes.

^^Peter nailed it. The real power in any society comes from the support/rejection of people’s behaviors by everyone else. To see how powerful this is, imagine if food, electricity, Internet, and medical providers decided they didn’t want to support your behavior because of an egregious action on your part? That would be a strong incentive to not do egregious things to people.

Take it further, suppose any small individual only had to raise his hand and say “Joe Doaks cheated me and owes me $1,000″ then an automated system started blocking Joe from products and services he needs until he makes restitution to the victim. That system would also operate a very close to zero cost to the wider population and not involve people with guns and uniforms.

On a (logarithmic) scale of 1 to 10 our Democratic societies are about a 3 in terms of human freedom. (Still the highest score of all political systems in history, but a very long way from what could be achieved if we abandoned coercion as a method of control.)

How did I not hear of this word “Voluntaryism” until today? Apparently I’ve been a Voluntaryist for many years. I have to admit though, it has been amusing, the reactions I’ve gotten, whenever I’ve told people that I am a Christian Anarchist.

“Then the neighbor across the street who doesn’t agree can’t do anything?”

What are you talking about? Do you mean “can’t do anything violent?” Wouldn’t you expect the neighbor to be able to converse with “Jack”? Are you vegetarian? Do you know any vegetarians? Are they unable to do anything when they see people eating meat? How about religion? Are you religious? Are you unable to do anything if Jehova’s Witnesses come to your door to offer you their literature? Or if you are one and you offer a neighbor literature and they refuse? Are you unable to do anything?

I asked you a lot of questions in the hope that you will see something, both for yourself and for “Jack” and your neighbors. If you’re interested in how we can “transition from our current government to a voluntary form” please try a web search for “one improved unit.” If you find good stuff (as I’m sure you will), please let us know that it’s valuable, and share it with others!